WE here present you with a Medal of an Hero­ick Author, which most properly belongs to you; (he being at this time hired to Lye and Libel in your service) and in his last Essay, has perform'd it so dully, that if you put him away (as it is said of the Gen­tleman-Usher and the Doctor in the Rehearsal) No body else will take him; No, No body else will take him. We cannot say his Portraicture is done at the full length, or has all its Orna­ments, since there are many touches to be added to it, which we shall reserve for the occasions he shall give us hereafter. But we dare say, these rough strokes have made the linea­ments and proportions so true, that any one that knows him, will find there is a great resemblance of him; and will believe that he has sate above five times for it. Though indeed he is so li­beral of shewing himself, that in an hours space, he will expose all his Parts; and a good Drawer, in that time, may observe enough to make a So the Pain­ters call a naked Picture. Nuditie of him.

You may know he is no concealer of himself, by a story which he tells of himself, viz. That (when he came first to Town) be­ing a young [...]aw fellow of seven and Twenty, as he call'd him­self when he told the story, he frequenting but one Coffee-house, the Woman (it seems finding him out) put Coffee upon him for Chocolate, and made him pay three pence a dish for two years to­ [...] [Page] midable Cripple. The unpunish'd audaciousness of this front­less Scribler, would be a reproach to any Government; and there­fore no man can think him too hardly dealt with in the following Medal: especially▪ since he knows, and so do all his old acquain­tance, that there is not an untrue word spoken of him.

There is not so vile an employment, as that of a Hired Libel­ler, an Executioner of mens Reputations: the Hangman is an Office of greater Dignity. Were all which your Poet says of this great Peer true, yet the Libeller ought to be whipt out of a Countrey for his Insolence: but what does he deserve, when he himself knows every word of it to be false! and scarce a Papist in England believes any thing of it to be true.

He is as unlucky in his allusion to the Turks wearing of Scander­begs Bones, as he is afterwards in his bungling Simile, about the feign'd Association. They were the Turks, Scanderbegs Enemies, that wore his Bones; and therefore he thinks this Lords Friends must do the same.

According to the example which he cites you, Tories should do it and I doubt not but ye would be glad on't; but we hope he will last, till by a happy Agreement of the King with a Parlia­ment, your Party will hide their heads, or become of no significa­tion; which for that very reason ye endeavour all ye can to ob­struct▪

I know not what good his Bones might do ye, were he dead; but I am sure his Brains, while he is living, would be very much to the advantage of the best of ye: those would keep ye from the ridiculous Follies and mad Extravagancies ye daily run into.

'Tis you that are apparently the Faction; since ye are the Few that have divided from the Many. 'Tis you who in your Facti­ous Clubs vilifie the Government, by audaciously railing a­gainst Parliaments, so great and so essential a part of it. They ought to lose the use of Speech, who dare say any thing irre­verently of the King, or disrespectfully of Parliaments.

[Page]If any thing could make the King lose the love and confi­dence of his people, it would be your unpunish'd boldness, who presume to call the Freeholders of England the Rabble, and their Representative a Crowd, and strike at the very Root of all their Liberty. Ye are those who abuse our gracious Prince, and endeavour to delude him with false Numbers, and promi­sing to serve him when ye have no Interest, as in all the fre­quent Parliaments (his Majesty has been pleased to promise us) will plainly appear.

If any thing could dishonour him, it would be the bloudy vi­olence of your Spirits; your unpunished Exorbitances, and breach of Laws; your Huzzaing, Roaring, Quarrelling, and Damning by much the greater part of the Nation, and their whole Representative Body. Who made ye Judges in Israel? but whatever ye might have been in Judea, ye will find very few of ye will be made, in England, Trustees for the Liberty of the people, as your Poet says, who (as if he had been hired for the whole Popish Plot) vilely casts dirt upon the best reformed Pro­testants in his next Page,

That Beza has been charged by the Papists for having insti­gated Poltrotius M [...]raeus to Assassinate the Duke of Guise, is readily acknowledged; but withal, we know how usual, and how meritorious a thing it is with them, to brand Protestants with whatsoever they can suppose will render them odious. Nor was this Calumny so much fastened by them upon Beza, as upon the Admiral Coligni, who was known to be a man of more Vertue and Honour, than to allow the least accession to so base a Crime. Had this vile Libeller but common honesty and ingenuity, he would (at the same time he presumes to revive this calumnious Accusation) have taken notice of the vindication which the Admiral published to justifie his innocency. Vide Stat. Repub. & Relig. in Gall [...]â, part 2. p. 358.

And for Buchanan, the character which Archbishop Spotswood has given of him, is enough to secure and preserve his memory from the stains which such Fellows as this, or any Enemies to truth [Page] and Learning▪ could throw upon him. Nor will Calvin lose the reverence he has from good Protestants, for this Libeller's mer­cenary Reproaches.

For the Association, which he next mentions, dropt out of the Clouds, entred into, and subscribed by no body, and seen by no one of our Party that ever we could hear of, (and we believe, by none of yours, but those that contrived the putting it into the Earls Closet) it renders you more ridiculous and extravagant than ever ye were; to set up an Abhorrence through all Eng­land, of a Paper, which you can lay to the charge of no Party, nor at one single mans door.

But we doubt not but if you had found or put the Libel your Poet was Cudgell'd for (though few of your Loyal Closets, per­haps, are without that, and other Libels upon the King) into the Earls Closet, ye would have set up an abhorrence of that, rather than not have kept up the Fermentation and Division amongst the people. When this is run out of breath, we suppose ye will set up the Ticket for the Forbidden Dinner, and ye will abhor Factious, Schismatical, Seditious, Fanatical, and Rebel­lious Dining, or some new Red-Herring out of his Lordships Kitchin will come forth.

The insolence in the same page of your Libeller, in comparing the Jury (that gave in Ignoramus to the Bill against our Noble Peer) to a Jury taken out of Newgate, deserves the Pillory, since 'tis evident to the whole City, they were all men of singular Honesty and Integrity in all their dealings, of signal good Lives, of good Ʋnderstandings, and of great Wealth; and, in the Memory of man, the City has not seen a Jury bet­ter qualified; nor was there one Dissenter amongst them, to prevent your weak Cavils; Cavils, I say; for it had been no Objection if they had been all so, since they value their Oaths and Consciences as much as any sort of men and have no Dispen­sations to go against them.

And this Clamour against the Jury, is because they would not believe an incredible matter from incredible Witnesses, who either were then, or had been lately, most of them Papists; [Page] who were so inconsistent in their Testimony with one another an [...] themselves, that I am confident not one of the reverend Benc believed them: if they did, they must be very shallow, and must take this Lord to be little better than an Ideot. If ye look upon the Oath of a Grand Jury-man, ye will find that the meaning of those two words Billa Vera is, they do believe the matter of the Bill in their Consciences to be true; which if they did not, they must have been perjur'd if they found, the Bill. The Law provides, that in capital Cases, a man shall not be wrongfully accused, and therefore appoints two Juries, both which are bound to find according to their belief; and the in­justice is as great, though the injury be less, for the former to accuse by Indictment, if they believe the party innocent, as for the latter to hang him with the same belief.

If ye had had the disposal of the Juries, we doubt not but there are Conspirators would have found Witnesses to have sworn that most of the Nobility and Gentry who have been zea­lous and active against Popery, had entred into this feigned Association. Heaven keep us from Juries, such as will give 800 l. dammages to a Powder-monkey, without any Dammage proved, (for words spoken by a Magistrate in rebuking the sawcy Fellow) as if it were Scandalum Magnatum to abuse a Tory, though a seller of Wash-balls: And from that which gave 1000 l. to a Knight for being called Papist, whom it would not, perhaps, have cost 100 l. if he had been convicted: Or 500 l. to a notorious Varlet, for being six hours detained by a Messenger, (after notice of the Dissolution of a Parliament) and perhaps no legal notice neither. Our Juries are zealous to preserve the Innocent, and yours to ruine and destroy them.

Ye see what manner of Spirit it is that actuates ye; and by the Fruits we can guess whether it be good or evil: it seems to us to breath forth nothing but Ruine, Murther, and Massacre. And, for your understanding, 'tis sufficiently shewn, by your pro­fessing to believe a Protestant Plot (to Seize and Depose the King, and destroy the Government) without any other Circum­stance proved, than that of a Joyner riding with Sword and [Page] Pistols to Oxford, who had used to ride so armed many years before; and yet ye have the face to deny a Popish Plot, (for the destruction of the Kings Person and Government) after Coleman's Letters, and the others published by the Recor­der (by command from the House of Commons); the Murther of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, the Assassination of Mr. Arnold: After a general Report among the Jesuites in all forein Popish Countries, of the Kings being dead (it seems they thought themselves cock-sure) at the time Dr. Oates swears he was to be murther'd here; and a multitude of other convincing Cir­cumstances, which were of that force, that there were at least ten of the Kings Proclamations that affirmed it, a publick Fast was enjoyned for it, and three successive Parliaments, nemine contradicente, upon a full hearing of the Evidence, reading all the Letters, and weighing all the Circumstances, declared it to be a horrid Conspiracy against the Kings Life and Govern­ment What impudence or stupidity is this, let the world judge!

Now, Tories, fare ye well; apply your heads to thinking a lit­tle, and do not, like young Whelps, run away with a false Scent, and cry out Forty One and Ignoramus; and in time ye may be wiser; and let your Poet know, that the first occasion he gives, he shall hear from us farther.